rofl christine you sound like me, I have pse7 (came free with my tablet)
pse9 for quality checking
I started with pspX
Now have psp 13 for quality checking and scripts
I have ps cs2 and then upped that to cs4 and now I have
upgraded to pscs5 extended.

the only thing I now want it illustrator, but I don't have a spare $800 lying around for that!!!

hm no wonder my computer gets bogged down some days LOL

I agree, start small and if you decide to progress into design, then think about getting the big guns.
Though, that said,many designers still do everything they need in pse
the key is knowing as much as you can about your program and what it can do, which of course is a life long ongoing learning curve, but we are all sponges and love to learn new things, right? !!